Jeremy Tilson
Founder of AlphaFirst
Software, systems and business experience.
AlphaFirst
Who We Are
AlphaFirst is a Hertfordshire software and IT business helping growing companies turn important work into clear, usable systems.
Practical systems, built on decades of experience
AlphaFirst helps growing businesses replace important spreadsheets, trackers and manual ways of working with clear systems their teams can rely on.
The company was founded by Jeremy Tilson, a software developer and business owner with more than 30 years’ experience in IT, bespoke software development and business systems.
Jeremy’s background includes corporate IT roles for some of the world’s best-known companies. That experience is what allows AlphaFirst to keep our work focused: one important job, one clear outcome, and systems people can actually use.
Based in Hertfordshire for over 25 years
AlphaFirst Ltd has been based in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire for over 25 years. During that time, we have delivered IT and software work to approaching 300 customers, with systems, training and reporting solutions used by thousands of people. More than 50 customers have left us five-star reviews on Google.
Our clients range from small businesses through to global Fortune 500 corporations. The common thread is practical work: systems that need to be reliable, information that needs to be trusted, and teams that need better ways to get things done.
Some of the people behind AlphaFirst
AlphaFirst is supported by a wider team. These are some of the key people involved in shaping the work, supporting clients and keeping things moving.
Vickie Barrett
Client Care Manager
Client communication, follow-up and making sure things keep moving.
Simon Woods
Technical Support Manager
Technical lead, ensuring effective day-to-day problem resolution.
Alex Tilson
AI Engineering Lead
AI engineering, practical systems work and support for AlphaFirst’s development team.
Mark Dradey
IT Support
Technical support, practical IT help and problem solving.
Hayley Collins
Accounts
Managing accounts and overseeing day-to-day finances
The problems we are used to seeing
Most growing businesses do not set out to create a software problem. They start with whatever helps the work get done: a spreadsheet, a shared file, an email trail, a folder structure, a small database or a workaround someone built because the business needed an answer quickly.
Over time, those quick answers can become important. More people rely on them. Reports depend on them. Customers or staff expect them to be right. That is usually where AlphaFirst can help.
What we do
AlphaFirst turns important work that has become hard to manage into clear working systems.
That might mean replacing a spreadsheet used for job tracking, training records, compliance, reporting, asset management, customer work, approvals or another job that has become too important to leave as it is.
We do not start by trying to build everything.
We start with one important job, understand what it really needs to do, and build the simplest reliable system that can replace the manual work and give the business more control.
AI makes software faster. Experience keeps it useful.
AI has made software development faster. We use it where it helps.
But AI does not decide what your business actually needs. It does not know which shortcuts are safe, which edge cases matter, or how to keep a build small enough to finish properly.
That is where experience still matters.
AlphaFirst uses modern AI-assisted tools alongside decades of software and business experience. The aim is not just to produce more code, more quickly. It is to produce a clearer system that solves the right problem and can be trusted in real use.
What we believe
We believe software should reduce pressure, not add to it.
- Business owners should have better visibility without chasing people.
- Teams should not waste time copying the same information between spreadsheets, emails and systems.
- A small system that gets used is worth more than a large system that never quite fits.
- Technology should serve the business, not the other way around.
Want to talk through what you need?
Whether you are looking at a Day-1 Build, ongoing IT support or a wider software problem, start with a short call. We will help you work out the right next step.